We’re back again, one day late, but as the old cliché goes, better late than never. So here you have the latest edition of Whewell’s Gazette you weekly links list for all things #histSTM, bringing all we could scrape together from the outer reaches of cyberspace of the histories of science, technology and medicine.

Our rubric Birthday of the Week, of course, features big name scholars when there is some sort of major anniversary, which generates much Internet activity. However there are always several scholars who have birthdays in any given week and not all of them get featured in this rubric but we try to pick out ones who might not be household names but who we think deserve more public awareness.

This week’s birthday boy, John Dalton, is a perfect example of this. If one were to ask the proverbial average person on the street who Dalton was they would probably come up with something like, “didn’t he used to play for Manchester United?” Dalton was one of the founders of the modern atomic theory of matter but he also made significant contributions to a wide range of other scientific disciplines, including founding the scientific investigation of colour blindness from which he suffered himself.

Dalton remains largely unknown to the public at large but we are of the opinion that he deserves to be up there with Newton and Darwin in public awareness, as a great British scientist.

Quotes of the week:

Don’t poo on scienceCaption courtesy of Jack Stilgoe (@Jackstilgoe)

“BoreVore: A predatory creature that paralyzes its prey by going on and on about its specialized diet. Mostly found in Industrialized West”. – @wetbinkt

An early photograph of James Clerk Maxwell’s original Cavendish Laboratory (built 1874). A large archway is due to be knocked through the ground floor of the right-hand wing. From: A History of the Cavendish Laboratory (1910). Photograph: A History of the Cavendish Laboratory (1910)